THE BETRAYALS : The stunning new fiction book from the author of the Sunday Times bestseller THE BINDING: This Christmas discover the stunning new ... of the Sunday Times bestseller THE BINDING

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We follow Lèo Martin (a disgraced politician and former school pupil of Montverre), Magister Dryden (the first female teacher in the history of Montverre) Lèo’s journal entries from his school days and occasionally from the character the Rat. All this vagueness creates a sense of detachment between the reader and the characters. I found it impossible to care about Léo and Claire when there was so much ambiguity surrounding everything else. The focus is mostly on their relationship but there’s nothing compelling about it seeing as neither of them are particularly likeable. Going to be honest here, this one was a struggle to get through. The Betrayals is the second novel I’ve read by Bridget Collins, and it was more disappointing than The Binding. Of course, though, the twist in the tale is that Claire IS actually the Carfax that Léo fell in love with, having disguised herself as her bipolar brother to attend his elite school. Thank you, by the way, Bridget Collins, for the delightful handling of a mentally ill barely-a-character who commits suicide to further his sister's personal angst-fest. A charming decision, honestly. Really sensitive. The Betrayals is a beautiful dystopian romance about coming of age as an artist and the love affair artistic collaboration can be, while also being an acute political novel about the fate of spiritual values in a totalitarian system. A rich delight' Sandra Newman

The decision to have Claire BE Carfax sat very strangely with me. The way it was handled felt very off. The trope of 'woman disguises herself as a man to attend something she wouldn't be able to as a woman' is as old as time, and in this scenario felt extremely trite and uninspired. Perhaps if there had been any nuance whatsoever in regards to how the narrative interacted with gender, instead of the heavy-handed mess that we got, this plot line could have worked better.

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And, finally, before this monstrosity of a comment gets any longer – I’m also thrilled I loved this! 🤗🤗 Thanks again for bringing it to my attention, I definitely owe you now! 🤣

So why am I giving it 3 stars? Because there's one thing that I was hoping it was going to happen since the very beginning and it actually did happen! There were moments where I was about to lose hope and I was thinking that maybe my crazy theories had gotten the better of me, so I was so happy to read that I was right to believe in this theory. Review may contain spoilers, so stop reading now if you haven’t read the book yet… or continue reading if you’re a rebel! And my shipper heart was just so, so satisfied 😍 It’s been a while since I shipped anyone as much as I did Léo and Carfax. I loved the way their relationship developed, how Léo went from envious hatred to defending “him” from Felix and all his other “friends”. I loved how they could talk about academics for hours and hours. How they understood one another despite their rivalry. The honest conversations they had on the astronomy tower and above the roof of the Great Hall. The underlying tension that was there the whole time. I mean, I was basically in seventh heaven when Léo walked in on Carfax playing the cello 🥰🎼 Leo’s former mistress: she’s supposed to be a significant, emotional pull for Leo and yet we don’t spend a lot of time with her (barely a chapter, not a happy one either) and yet how Leo goes on about her at times I often asked the book, why, why are we talking about her again – you haven’t given me one good reason to care for her so why do you keep mentioning her? and looking at the four main character POVs, there was truly only one whose chapters i was actively looking forward to reading. the other three are either seemingly unnecessary or just uninteresting.

That being said, break out your Latin dictionaries because you’re going to need them! I took a few years of Latin in high school, but it’s been a minute. Knowing that, or having a glossary and a map included ( hopefully there will be one in the finished edition), I think it would have aided in my understanding of the world just enough to take this from a seven star read to a ten star read. And while I was a bit mad that the grand jeu is never explained explicitly, it does add to the whole mystery of this. Same with a lot of other aspects; the not knowing, and slow uncovering of details and plot lines, inevitably leading a really satisfactory 'Aha! I should have known all along' moments was really the most enjoyable part of this.